


Three-Quarters

by acid_and_oil (orphan_account)



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Spurned Affections, Vlad is Danny's biological father, badger cereal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-30 12:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12109152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/acid_and_oil
Summary: Danny's accident should have been a lot worse. He should have been hospitalized for years or even killed.Good thing Danny was already a quarter ghost.





	1. The Announcement

**Author's Note:**

> Oooh boy. I wanted to write something for Danny Phantom that isn't slash. I like the idea of a slight AU where Vlad is Danny's biological father. So... I'm trying my hand at some badger cereal.

Jack Fenton placed a large hand on his crying wife’s knee. “Mads? What wrong?” 

Maddie he had something to tell him. Something that had to wait until their almost two year old daughter, Jasmine, was asleep. Now that the time had come, she could barely even raise her head up to look at the man.

“Jack…” His wife’s violet eyes were brimming with tears, and it broke his heart. “I’m pregnant.”

Jack wasn’t sure what he had been expecting his wife to say, but it wasn’t that. He grabbed Maddie’s hands, a grin splitting his face.

“We are going to have another baby? That’s wonderful news! My baby is having another baby!” Maddie choked back another sob, and Jack’s stomach sank again as he remembered that something was wrong. Was she sick? Maybe there was some type of complication. “Mads?” 

She said the words that she didn’t want to say, but knew that she had to. “The baby…might not be yours.”

Jack felt numb. All he could do was stare at her, stare at his wife. He finally recovered from his shock enough to utter a single word, a question.

“Who?”

Maddie shook her head with a sad smile. “Do you remember that fight we had? The night of the convention?” Jack swallowed. Of course he did. They had flown out to Milwaukee to attend an event for paranormal enthusiasts. Jack led a discussion insisting that Santa Claus was real, which only served to discredit both of them in the eyes of their peers, and seriously embarrass Maddie. They had a nasty fight, and Maddie walked out.

“I was just so upset, Jack. I went to have a few drinks in the hotel bar, and…” She trailed off, staring at a blank space on the wall. “Oh,god. I don’t even know who he was, Jack. I barely remember a thing. I can’t believe I did something like that, I am just so ashamed. And now… I’m going to have a baby...”

Jack placed his hand on his wife’s slender shoulder. “No, Mads, listen to me. We are going to have a baby. We are in this together. I love you, baby.”

Maddie leaned into her husband’s embrace, closing her eyes. Everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next- Maddie's Mistake


	2. Maddie's Mistake

Vlad was positively elated. Even before his accident, before his awful disfigurement, he had nothing to compare to the emotion he was feeling right now. His stomach was fluttering, his head was buzzing, yet he felt a strong sense of calm, as he stroked the long auburn hair of the woman he had loved for the last ten years of his life. She was finally his. After all this time. After the four years of college, when he was too shy to speak his true feelings. After the four years of lonely, painful recovery in the hospital following the lab accident. After two years of anguishing over the news that she wed another, that she wed his best friend. Those two years he had spent practicing his ghost powers and stealing businesses and money had finally paid off. 

Vlad hadn’t even planned on seducing her. Not yet, anyway. The plan was always to acquire more wealth and success, and then to insert himself back into their lives, building a friendship with Maddie. Then using his powers, he would ruin Jack financially and socially so that Vlad could swoop in as the hero. He would marry Maddie and take her daughter in as his own, perhaps even make her his successor when his business plans finally came to fruition.

But plans change, Vlad thought, still stoking the sleeping woman’s hair. Vlad was behind the convention, of course. Nothing a paper trail would reveal, but he had influenced the right people into making it happen and inviting Maddie Fenton. He hadn’t counted on them hiring a baby sitter, he figured Jack would watch the girl. It didn’t matter. Vlad was just going to observe her, watch Maddie in the flesh from his invisible form. Watch her enthusiasm, appreciate the view, and learn some things about her he could perhaps use to his advantage when the wooing stage of his plan came into play.

But the buffoon had sunk himself. Jack Fenton destroyed his own reputation and career. He had driven Maddie away all on his own, with no help from Vlad at all. And ahead of schedule and everything.

Plasmius had been watching Maddie and Jack fight. When Maddie went to the bar, he followed, silent and unseen. His plan had not changed until he saw that a man had bought Maddie a drink and was flirting with her. That alone made his blood boil, but then an interesting thing happened. Maddie had flirted back. 

Plan be damned. Plasmius overshadowed the smooth-talking man and made him pay for a round of brandy before making him tell Maddie she was far too good for him, and walking out into the street.

Vlad transformed back into himself. He was 28 year old,although his white hair made him look older. Something about his ghost powers just refused to allow any dye to stick, so he kept his white hair shaved down to the skin. He was dressed well, in a pair of dress slacks and a button down collared wine colored silk shirt. 

Maddie was clearly drunk when he approached her. She was slouching against the bar, her legs open a little too wide to be considered ladylike.   
“Hello, my dear.”   
Vlad had listened to Maddie’s angry ranting, offering sympathy when it was called for. They also discussed ghost theory, college, and how life had been. Maddie brought up the accident, but Vlad waved it away. He said that tonight was all about her. They rose when he suggested they continue the conversation back in his room. There was a small snag when the bartender grabbed Maddie by arm, and asked if she was sure she was good. Vlad’s heart soared when he heard Maddie say that it was okay, that she knew him. 

Even at that point, it hadn’t been Vlad’s intention to bed her. He was going to profess his feeling in a more private place, going to offer to take care of her. No, the bedding had all been Maddie’s idea. Vlad did not complain. He may have not preferred that his first taste of Maddie’s lips burned of alcohol, but at least he was finally kissing her. She was all that mattered. For the last ten years, she was all that had mattered, and for that night of lovemaking and of finally sleeping, curled in each others arms, she was still what mattered. 

Now it was morning. Maddie was still sleeping while the man softly stroked her hair. He knew Maddie would have a head ache in the morning, and may need some reassurance that what he had promised her was not a drunken lie, that he was eager to take care of her and her child, and be a family. He still planned to marry her just as soon as the divorce went through.

What he did not count on was Maddie not even recognizing or remembering who he was. His beautiful Maddie, the love of his life, had awakened thinking that Vlad was a complete stranger, and that the night was an awful drunken mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: The Fight Before Christmas


	3. The Fight Before Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A child is born! A new holiday tradition is created.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel this has been sub-par compared to my other works. I blame my other works lol. I write too much Pompep and Pacman to get into Badger Cereal and Spurned Affections headspace

It was early August of the year 1990 when Daniel “Danny” James Fenton was brought into the world. He was born five weeks before his due date, small and sick. His temperate was too low, baffling and concerning the doctors, but soon enough he grew strong enough to take home.

Jack Fenton loved the baby before he was even born. It was his wife’s child, and he loved his wife. When the ultrasound had indicate the baby was a male, Jack just couldn’t stop beaming. Visions went through his mind, daydreams of someone to toss a football with, someone to talk to about ghosts, and to teach how to fix and build and take things apart. Jack loved his last name, and now there was someone who could pass on the Fenton family name, keep it alive. His little Jazzy-pants would have a brother. 

Maddie picked out the name. Jack wasn’t a fan of the name Danny, but he had named Jasmine, so it was decided that Maddie would pick out the name of the next child. Maddie was worried about her baby’s health, but was relieved to see the dark hair. She didn’t remember much of that night, or of the stranger she woke up screaming in the bed of the next morning. She did remember him having closely cropped light colored hair. Pale blond, perhaps. She remembered the haunted look in his eyes, but not the color. Maddie knew how genetics worked, knew that it didn’t have to mean anything, but she chose to believe that it did. That having the same hair and eye color as Jack meant that the baby was his.  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
It was Danny’s first winter. He was four months old. Maddie had bundled him up in a fuzzy green blanket, and took him along to chop down the Christmas tree. Jazz was toddling about excitedly in her red winter coat, running from tree to tree, with a big smile on her tiny two year old face. She stumbled, and Jack picked her up and hugged her tiny body to his. He lifted Jazz to ride on his shoulders, where she tugged the Santa hat that Jack was wearing over his eyes, causing him to loose his footing and almost drop Jazz.

Maddie put Danny’s baby carrier on the ground, and rushed over to Jazz, scooping her up into her arms and giving her kisses. When she was satisfied her daughter was okay, Maddie turned to Jack. She was furious. “I don’t know why you insisted on wearing that hat. Your daughter could have gotten seriously hurt!”

Jack gave his daughter a little pat. “You are okay, aren’t you, Jazzy-Pants? She’s a trooper, this one! Just like her father.”

The combination of these other wise innocent words with the act of Jack straightening out the Santa hat made Maddie explode in anger. “And just what do you mean by that? Anything that you’ve had to ‘troop’ through you volunteered for.”

Jack’s face fell. “Maddie, that’s not what I meant.”

Maddie placed her hands on her hips and pressed her lips together. “I…I don’t think we should do Santa Claus this year.” At this point, Danny, who was still neglected in his carrier, only inches away from the cold snow, began to cry. 

“Not now, Maddie. You are upsetting your son.” Even oblivious Jack recognized the error almost as soon as it left his lips. “I mean our son.” But it was to late.  
She walked up to her husband, poking him in the chest.

“Santa Claus could never deliver all of those packages in a single night.”

Jack glared down at his wife. “He can and he does, and Mrs. Claus is very supportive and appreciates all he has sacrificed to make it happen.”

Jazz stared blankly at her parents, while a large dog came over to sniff at the baby in the carrier.

This fight would go on to happen every year. Only Jack and Maddie knew that it wasn’t really about Santa Claus. Not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Reunions & Revelations


	4. Reunions and Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting the next chapter now because I have no self-control

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
Vlad spent the next few years drowning in brandy and amassing his wealth. The plan changed. It changed again. This time, Jack Fenton had to die. He would murder that fat oaf. Maddie would be his. 

It was hard, but he stayed away from Maddie. He knew that if he didn’t, he would ruin everything. He had to be patient this time, so he didn’t keep tabs on the family. He focused on building his business empire. He distracted himself with stealing in the conventional way at first, but then found it more satisfying and efficient to overshadow people. Sometimes he would ruin his competitors, much like he had originally planned on doing to Jack, Sometimes he would make the CEO simply sign some paperwork, handing everything over to him. That was how he acquired Mastersoft.  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Vlad was finally ready. Fifteen years had passed since that night with Maddie. The best night of his pathetic lonely life. Vlad sent out a trio of vulture ghosts to spy on the Fenton’s for him. He sent out a mindless creature, an ecto-puss, to test out Jack’s ghost hunting abilities. To see what he was dealing with, and how to approach. The ectopusses never returned, and the vultures spoke of another ghost taking them out, not Jack. They had intercepted. He would just have to send someone else after Jack, someone he could at least communicate with words to, unlike the simple ecto-puss creatures.

When the vultures returned from being told to rip Jack apart, the news was not good. Again, the same ghost had intercepted the attack. It looked like a teenage boy, and seemed to fancy himself a super hero. After intimidating other ghosts, Vlad learned that the ghost boy had been at his game for a couple months. He seemed adept enough, but no matter. His territory was Amity Park. Vlad would just have to invite the family to Wisconsin. They would be on the territory of Vlad Plasmius. Vlad would finally have his revenge and have his bride.  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
Plasmius watched the white rings that split across Phantom’s unconscious body as though it were a slow motion recap of a play in a Packer’s game.   
“The ghost boy is Maddie’s son?”

Maddie’s fourteen year old son. Black hair. Blue eyes. Ghost powers. Vlad changed back into his human form as well.

“Well, what do you know?” 

This certainly changed things.  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
Danny Phantom phased his father into the bathroom and frightened off the vulture ghosts. He had no idea why they kept going after his father, but at least getting rid of them was easy. “Almost too easy.” 

“Bright boy.” The voice was smooth, and…affectionate? Danny turned around to face a ghost he never seen before. He was tall, with the build of an adult male. His skin was blue, his cape, burning red eyes, and twin peaks of hair giving him a vampire appearance. The two just hung in the air for a while, staring at each other.   
The blue ghost blinked in awe, muttering softly. “The vultures were supposed to bring the big idiot to me…”

Danny Phantom broke the awkward moment by swinging at the other ghost. He was instantly flung against the wall. “Let that be a lesson to never under-estimate your opponent, Danny Phantom.”

Who exactly was this guy? “You know who I am?” There was a strange look that came across his blue face. It wasn’t quite readable with the unusual eyes.

“Of course I know you.”   
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
“I don’t want to fight you.”  
Vlad was mentally playing back the fight from earlier.

Danny Phantom had asked Plasmius if he knew who he was. He had said he didn’t want to fight. Did he know? Could he sense that he was his father? Or worse, had Maddie told him? Was she feigning the black out to hide her regrets? Vlad felt rage threatening to bubble to the surface. During the fight, Plasmius had noticed that Danny Phantom had the clumsy rash moves of an amateur, and the ability and power of a very new ghost. He may only be a quarter ghost, but it still didn’t seem like he had ghost powers his whole life, and Vlad couldn't help but wonder why.  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=  
The Fenton family had just left in that atrocious vehicle of Jack’s. Vlad’s mansion was heavily damaged. Maddie and Jack actually seemed closer than they had before he possessed him. The Dairy King had freed Daniel, but he had made his offer, and when the time was right, the boy would come to him. After all, a boy needs his father.  
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

“Look Sam, what we have is pretty serious, yes?” Sam raised an eyebrow at her boyfriend.

“We’ve been dating four years, Don Juan, you tell me.”

Danny couldn’t help but grin. “You always call me out on shit, Sam. I love you. I love that about you.” He really did. He loved this woman with every fiber of his being. He loved her so much that he wanted to be with her for the rest of their lives. “Every time I think about my future, am, every time I picture getting my own place, or um…” he paused, blushing furiously, “starting a family… it’s with you.”

Sam was beaming, her eyes so full of adoration that Danny wanted to melt. “I feel the same way, Danny.”

Danny sucked in a breath. Everything felt surreal. He never knew happiness could result in nausea until this moment. “I think that before we ever took that step, though, there are some things I should tell you, things about my family, something that may affect any future…hypothetical kids…that I may have.”

“Do you remember that time when we were fourteen, when Vlad infected you and Tucker with ecto-acne?”

Sam snorted in disgust. “Not to speak ill of the missing-in-action-and-presumed-deceased, but that was one cold move.”

Danny smiled sadly. Vlad had been missing ever since the disasteroid incident. It was the same day he had started dating Sam.

“I went back in time that day.”   
Sam’s eyes widened at the new information, but she kept listening.

“I begged Clockwork to let me change the past. To let me prevent Vlad from ever having the accident in the first place.”

“Obviously that didn’t work out.” Sam gestured to the air around her, indicating their reality.

“The thing is, it did. It did at first, until I begged Clockwork again.”

He had Sam’s attention.

“I messed up. My dad got hit instead.” The term meant more than blood. “I went back to my time, and he was a half-ghost. Jack Plasmius.” Sam suppressed a chuckle of amusement. “I know, super original, right? Anyways, here is the part I need to tell you Sam. He wasn’t married to my mother. After his accident, he had hidden himself away. V-v-v-lad,” he stammered on the name, “Vlad married my mom instead.” Sam cringed. “I know, but that isn’t the worst part, Sam. The worst part is…he knew who I was. Jack Plasmius… he called my Daniel Masters.” His stomach dropped a little, just re-telling it. 

Sam chose her words carefully. Her boyfriend was clearly upset by this information, and felt it was vital to tell her before they took the next step, but… “But you fixed the time-line, didn’t you? With Clockwork?”

“You don’t get it, Sam.” Danny was shaking. “Jazz didn’t exist. Well she did, but it was just the name of his cat. I existed. As Daniel Masters.” He spoke slowly, letting the point sink in to himself as much as to Sam. “In an alternate time line where my mom married Vlad and hadn’t seen my dad in twenty years, I still was born.”

Sam was silent.

“It wasn’t just the name either, although Jack Plasmius did say Danny was a stupid name. I actually looked myself up. I went invisible, I spied on him at some prep school in Wisconsin. He was me, Sam.”

Sam placed her hand on his for reassurance and comfort as he completed the revelation. 

“Vlad Masters, in that time line and in this one, is my biological father.”

 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Endings and Beginnings (final chapter)


	5. Endings and Beginnings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clear up some confusion: this is a slight AU. It's mostly canon, but some dialogue (and a huge part of Masters of all Time) have been altered to fit the story.
> 
> Also, some elements from the Danny Phantom Ten Years Later videos are included in this chapter.

Plasmius floated aimlessly in the vacuum of space. By the time slavers found him and sold him to The Games, he was a broken man. During The Games he performed spectacularly, sure. He was every bit the blood thirsty savage the handlers warned him to be, everything the crowd ate up. But inside, he was dead. A shell of a man, internally playing back his final interaction with the last human he ever thought he’d see.   
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
The two men were side by side in the Fenton rocket. Jack had been quiet during launch. He finally spoke, his words drenched in conflict and disbelief.  
“How could you hold the world hostage like that, Vladdie? After all the good fortune you had in your life?”  
“Good fortune?” Vlad shrieked incrediously. “You infect me with ghost DNA, steal the love of my life, raise my son, and you call that good fortune?”

Jack sounded like he felt truly terrible when he heard just how bad the accident was, and how hard it had made Vlad’s life. He was so focused on the accident that the part about Danny and Maddie went over his head for the time being. Vlad could hear the pain in his voice as he pleaded with him, told him that they were friends.

“I even voted for you, Vladdie.”

Vladdie smirked, high on revenge. “I’ll remember that when I steal Maddie from you, and take my rightful role as Daniel’s father.”

Then the penny finally dropped.

“Danny’s...father? You?” 

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The look of realization, betrayal, and sheer, utter heartbreak that played itself across Jack’s fleshy features was delicious at the moment, but now it seemed irrelevant. Now he didn’t blame Jack for closing the airlock and jetting away. Right now, all that mattered was Daniel. His son.

The power didn’t matter. The fear and respect. The extra rations he’d earned for being one of the most prized fighters went untouched, and soon Plasmius grew thin and weary. He never changed into his human form while on that alien planet. No one knew he could. He was able to change his form and sneak out undetected. When he was finally caught up to, he fought back. When he succumbed to his captors, when his weak undernourished body gave out and he collapsed there was only one thought on his mind.   
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-  
Cobalt eyes blinked open. He still had chains on his wrists, but they were no longer attached to the wall of his cell. What had happened? He remembered sounds? Vlad felt a cool embrace around him, and looked up to see the face of his savior. “Daniel?” He was much older, but it was him. 

“I was in the area.”

Vlad chuckled, and passed back out. 

“I couldn’t leave my other father to rot in space jail, could I?”

When Vlad awoke, he was on Earth. “Jack…told you?”

“I knew for a long time.”

“But…why?”

“Because I’ve seen one of your futures. I know you can be redeemed. Besides, you are family, and us hybrids have to stick together.”   
Sam peeked her head into the room. Her hair was long, her make-up much more subtle. “Ready for us yet?”

Danny gave the ‘one more moment’ signal. “Besides, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

The little girl had black hair and glowing violet eyes. She shyly clung to her mother’s leg, yet looked over to the man on the hospital bed with keen interest.

“Gracelyn, I’d like you to meet your Grandpa Vlad.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! The whole Vlad being captured by aliens for sport came from the Ten Years Later Part Two video.  
> Also I didn't include anything about Dani, but I imagine in this AU Vlad was trying to clone his actual son, and that was why he rejected Dani, because she wasn't a boy (so sad)
> 
> Also I imagine that The Ultimate Enemy scenes with Vlad would have been slightly different in his AU too.
> 
> Danny's daughter's name comes from another fic I read (sorry can't remember at the moment, I'll add it when I do) where Danny and Sam had a daughter named Gracie, and now I can't imagine them having a daughter by any other name.  
> Um thanks for reading!


End file.
